War and popular culture : resistance in modern China, 1937-1945 / Chang-tai Hung.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Hung, Chang-tai, 1949- author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Arts, Chinese--20th century.

Arts, Chinese.

Sino-Japanese War, 1937-1945--Art and the war.

Sino-Japanese War, 1937-1945.

China--Civilization--1912-1949.

China.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (xv, 432 p. ) ill., maps ;

Edition:

First edition.

Place of Publication:

Berkeley, California : University of California Press, [1994]

Language Note:

English

Summary:

This is the first comprehensive study of popular culture in twentieth-century China, and of its political impact during the Sino-Japanese War of 1937-1945 (known in China as "The War of Resistance against Japan"). Chang-tai Hung shows in compelling detail how Chinese resisters used a variety of popular cultural forms--especially dramas, cartoons, and newspapers--to reach out to the rural audience and galvanize support for the war cause. While the Nationalists used popular culture as a patriotic tool, the Communists refashioned it into a socialist propaganda instrument, creating lively symbols of peasant heroes and joyful images of village life under their rule. In the end, Hung argues, the Communists' use of popular culture contributed to their victory in revolution. This is the first comprehensive study of popular culture in twentieth-century China, and of its political impact during the Sino-Japanese War of 1937-1945 (known in China as "The War of Resistance against Japan"). Chang-tai Hung shows in compelling detail.

Contents:

[ch]. 1. The rise of modern popular culture

Treaty ports and Shanghai

A new drama in urban China

The emergence of Chinese cartoons

The new press and new journalists

[ch]. 2. Spoken dramas

Popularization

The street play Lay down your whip

Female symbols of resistance : patriotic courtesans and women warriors

Historical plays

Traditional dramas

[ch]. 3. Cartoons

The National Salvation Cartoon Propaganda Corps

Images of war

A new form of art

War and peace in the cartoons of Feng Zikai

[ch]. 4. Newspapers

Wartime dispatches

Fan Changjiang and the rhetoric of war

The war correspondent

The journalist as critic

Dissemination and decentralization

Local newspapers

[ch]. 5. New wine in old bottles

The use of popular literature

Lao She and Lao Xiang

Drum singing and other popular culture forms

Popular reading materials

[ch]. 6. Popular culture in the communist areas

The village drama movement

Art for politics' sake

Newspapers and a new language

Creating a new culture

The border region culture

[ch]. 7. A new political culture

Intellectuals and participation

The dissemination of urban popular culture forms

Village culture.

Notes:

Bibliographic Level Mode of Issuance: Monograph

Description based on print version record.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

9780585130798

0585130795

OCLC:

1409029142